A Boston Brahmin is a member of Boston's traditional upper class. Members of this class are characterized by their highly discreet and inconspicuous lifestyle. Members of Boston's Brahmin class form an integral part of the historic core of the East Coastestablishment, and are often associated with the distinctive Boston Brahmin accent, Harvard University, and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English colonists, such as those who came to America on the Mayflower or the Arbella, are often considered to be the most representative of the Boston Brahmins.[citation needed]

The term was coined by the physician and writer Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in an 1860 article in the Atlantic Monthly.[1] The term Brahmin refers to the highest ranking caste of people in the traditional Hindu system of castes. In the United States, it has been applied to the old, wealthy New England families of British Protestant origin which were influential in the development of American institutions and culture. The term effectively underscores the strong conviction of the New England gentry that they were a people set apart by destiny to guide the American experiment as their ancestors had played a leading role in founding it. The term also serves to illustrate the erudite and exclusive nature of the New England gentry as perceived by outsiders, and may also refer to their interest in Eastern religions, fostered perhaps by the impact in the 19th century of the transcendentalist writings of New England literary icons as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, and the enlightened appeal of Universalist Unitarian movements of the same period.

While some 19th-century Brahmin families of large fortune were of bourgeois origin, others were of aristocratic origin. The new families were often the first to seek, in typically British fashion, suitable marriage alliances with those old aristocratic New England families that were descended from landowners in England to elevate and cement their social standing. The Winthrops, Dudleys, Saltonstalls, Winslows and Lymans (descended from English magistrates and gentry) were, by and large, happy with this arrangement. All of Boston's "Brahmin elite," therefore, maintained the received culture of the old English gentry including cultivating the personal excellence that they imagined maintained the distinction between gentlemen and freemen, and between women and ladies. They saw it as their duty to maintain what they defined as high standards of excellence, duty, and restraint. Cultivated, urbane, and dignified, a Boston Brahmin was supposed to be the very essence of enlightened aristocracy.[4][5] The ideal Brahmin was not only wealthy, but displayed what was considered suitable personal virtues and character traits. The Brahmin was expected to maintain the customary English reserve in his dress, manner, and deportment, cultivate the arts, support charities such as hospitals and colleges, and assume the role of community leader.[6]:14 Although the ideal called on him to transcend commonplace business values, in practice many found the thrill of economic success quite attractive. The Brahmins warned each other against avarice and insisted upon personal responsibility. Scandal and divorce were unacceptable. The total system was buttressed by the strong extended family ties present in Boston society. Young men attended the same prep schools and colleges, and private clubs [7] and heirs married heiresses. Family not only served as an economic asset, but also as a means of moral restraint. Most belong to the Unitarian or Episcopal churches, although some were Congregationalists or Methodists. Politically they were successively Federalists, Whigs, and Republicans. They were marked by their manners and once distinctive elocution, the Boston Brahmin accent, a version of the New England accent. Their distinctive Anglo-American manner of dress has been much imitated and is the foundation of the style now informally known as preppy. In proper Boston society, "who" has always mattered more than "how much" and although they have, for the most part, relinquished their historic role as leaders of Massachusetts government, they are still to be found on boards of financial institutions, schools, and arts organizations quietly setting the example of disinterested public service in the manner of their distinguished forebears.

Many of the Brahmin families[citation needed] trace their ancestry back to the original 17th- and 18th-century colonial ruling class consisting of Massachusetts Governors and magistrates, Harvard Presidents, distinguished clergy and fellows of the Royal Society of London (a leading scientific body) while others entered New England aristocratic society during the 19th century with their profits from commerce and trade often marrying into established Brahmin families such as the Welds, Saltonstalls, Lymans, Sargents, Emersons, Winslows, Warrens and Winthrops. A few families are listed here.

Theodore Lyman III (1833 - 1897) was a natural scientist, aide-de-camp to Major General Meade during the American Civil War, and United States Congressman from Massachusetts.

Theodore Lyman IV (1874 - 1954) Director Jefferson Physics Lab, Harvard, He was the eponym of the Lyman series of spectral lines. The crater Lyman on the far side of the Moon is named after him as is the Lyman Physics Building at Harvard

George Williams Lyman (1786-1880) developed textile mills, director of the Boston and Lowell Railroad and the Columbian Bank, president Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company. His first wife was Elizabeth Gray Otis, the daughter of Harrison Gray Otis (U.S. Senator and Mayor of Boston) and Sally Foster Otis, prominent Bostonians who built a noted Federal-style mansion still standing.

Arthur T. Lyman, Jr. (1861-1933) married Susan Cabot. Director and officer of textile manufacturing companies and the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company. Board member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Waltham Hospital. He was active in politics as president of the Democratic Club of Massachusetts, chairman of the State Democratic Committee.

Dr. John Collins Warren (1778–1856), surgeon, gave first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia, a founder of New England Journal of Medicine, president of the American Medical Association. founding Dean of Harvard Medical School and a founder of Massachusetts General Hospital

^Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Brahmin Caste of New England", The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 27, Chapter 1 (1860). The series of articles that this article was part of eventually became his novel Elsie Venner, and the first chapter of that novel was about the Brahmin caste.